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Melanie Johnson, chair of the association, said: “The credit card industry is keen to give consumers as much control of their finances as possible.”

She added that the plans will “deliver big improvements to customers without smothering competition and choice, which customers value and gain significant benefit from. It will also maintain features which are vital to lenders being able to lend responsibly.”

The proposed package includes an industry-wide change to the ‘allocation of payments’ practice, so all payments above the minimum are put towards paying the most expensive debt first.

The practice of unsolicited credit limit increases for customers struggling with money management will be banned.

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According to a newspaper report in The Age, Australian banking major ANZ is said to be in talks to acquire fund manager IOOF Holdings. The negotiations are believed to be at a preliminary stage.

The report, which quoted unnamed sources says that negotiations are ongoing, and it is uncertain whether a deal will eventually be reached.

IOOF is one of the few remaining independent fund managers in the financial advisory and superannuation industry.

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Those large expenses that don’t occur monthly are a big reason why some people end up in debt. Even people who are well intentioned and good at avoiding debt in other circumstances are often caught by surprise by these big expenses. Insurance, taxes, and other bills that are paid yearly rather than monthly are all examples of these irregular expenses. Even Christmas spending can fall into this category if you fail to plan for it. These expenses are easy to forget about because you don’t pay them month in and month out as you do with a utility or credit card bill. So you fail to account for them in your daily budget and then, wham! The bill for $1,200 in property taxes arrives in your mailbox and you think, “Oh, no. I don

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This guest post from Lars is part of a new feature here at Get Rich Slowly.

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Two of my favorite writers, Liz Pulliam Weston and Bill Maher, suggested in recent columns that now may be the time to leave your bank and join a credit union. Ms. Weston’s advice was more along the lines of informing her readers that “you can get better interest rates and better treatment at a member-owned credit union than a bank”. If you know Bill Maher’s reputation, you can imagine how different the tone of his blog post was.

And you’d be right. Maher did

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